The Killings Fields is a chilling film about the Cambodian genocide and the regime of the Khmer Rouge. Released in 1984, five years after the end of Pol Pot’s reign, the film tries to capture the chaos, devastation, and unrelenting violence that occurred in Cambodia a country that was thrown into conflict by the reverberations of the Vietnam War. Throughout the film, thoughts of fear and violence flood the viewer through scenes of bombings and guerrilla warfare to the dangerous score that plays behind Pran’s time in the labor camp. The Killing Fields uses understated depictions of violence to show the viewer how it affected the Cambodians and to explain how genocides occur as a whole. Within the first ten minutes of The Killing Fields, there
David Chandler explains that many Cambodians saw “their country as essentially a happy place, being visited by war.” He also says they were stunned by the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge, who “‘didn 't even look like Cambodians, they seemed to be from the jungle, or a different world.’” In the film, the Khmer Rouge close in on the capital city by cutting off the road to the airport. During this scene, which includes Schanberg and Pran darting in and out of a Coca Cola factory while citizens are fleeing the area, a young girl’s cries can be heard over the din of machine guns and mass exodus. Though children often cry, it is easy to see how Joffé wanted her tears to mean something more, to show the despair of a country tearing itself
The Killing Fields provides them with a screen that bears the words: “Cambodia’s Torment Has Not Yet Ended. The Refugee Camps on the Thai Border Are Still Crowded with the Children of the Killing Fields.” The violence inflicted upon Cambodia’s people would not be validated until 2014 when the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were formally charged with genocide, which means that in many ways, especially psychologically, violence was still being inflicted upon the victims of the Khmer Rouge and their families. Stephen P. Marks describes this phenomenon in his article that documents the history of the elusive justice of victims of the Cambodian Genocide. There were several show trials about the Genocide after the Khmer Rouge collapsed. Pol Pot was put on trial by members of his own party in 1997. When UN officials asked that the Khmer Rouge surrender him, he died, quite suspiciously, of a heart attack. That trial and the trials in 1979 conducted by Vietnam were internal, corrupt affairs. An International tribunal, Marks explains, would lead to better post trial peace building and would validate the suffering of the Cambodians lost in the killing fields. In one title screen, The Killing Fields implies that for years Cambodians have been quietly violated as they waited for
His perception of reality changes greatly when he is stripped of his innocence. Despite numerous attempts to comply with the multiple tenets of the revolution, he’s obligated to join the Khmer Rouge as a soldier. Heavily burdened by this task, Arn risks losing his morality and humanity for the sake of survival. He states, “Now I have gun. I feel I am one of the Khmer Rouge. It feels powerful” (112). After months of supressing his will under the reign of the revolutionaries, being on the other side of the battlefield allows him to bask in violence and brutality, using it as a channel to release his tide of emotions involving misused vulnerability, fierce ire, oppression and grief. Arn becomes a killing machine – a clear consequence of the excruciating abuse he suffered. His past shaped his perception of reality whereby his supressed emotions crippled his ability to perceive optimistically. He states, “Long time I been on my own, but now really I'm alone. I survive the killing, the starving, all the hate of the Khmer Rouge, but I think maybe now I will die of this, of broken heart” (110). Arn’s crippling unleashes a plethora of feelings, each more overwhelming than the next. His impulsive retaliation by killing and imposing death only cripples him further by clouding his judgement. He’s caught in a blind rage, unable to feel or think clearly. It’s only after discovering that his sister
In some ways, Kellie’s depiction was entirely bias and unfair, as to the choice of footage used; there was no indication of the various charities that aim to alleviate poverty within Australia, including: Salvos, Anglicare and St Vincent de Paul. This is entirely symbolic of how the media falsely depicts those in poverty, with the pure aim of entertaining the audience, showing a complete lack of empathy. Similarly, the concept of disrespect was evident in tourists that we saw at the public restaurants we visited throughout the journey; some were excessively drinking, whilst others were littering or using obscene language at local Khmer people. From a personal perspective, a lack of understanding between any individuals, whether they are disadvantaged or advantaged, contradicts Christian values and ideals, making the producer and the other tourists somewhat disrespectful and uncompassionate towards the Mt Druitt and Cambodian community
O'Neill, Laurie A.. Chapter 8: The Massacre. The Millbrook Press, 1993. eLibrary. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.
From the contrast of the slums of Hanoi and the breathtaking beauty of a natural vista, Huong has revealed the impact of this disparity on her protagonist. The author utilises the connection between the land and the villagers of Que’s birthplace to emphasise the steadiness and support the landscape gives, in times of upheaval, illuminating that it is possible to recover from disaster. Despite Huong’s criticism of Vietnam, she emphasises the resilience of the people of Vietnam and the ability for beauty and hope to flourish through oppression.
As a young teen, she huddled in a bomb shelter during intense artillery shelling of her hamlet, escaping out a rear exit just as US Marines shouted for the “mama-sans” and “baby-sans” (women and children) to come out the front. She got as far as the nearby river before she heard gunfire. Returning the next day, she encountered a scene that was seared into her brain. “I saw dead people piled up in the hamlet. I saw my mom’s body and my younger siblings,” told Ho Thi Van. She lost eight family members in that 1968 massacre. In all, according to the local survivors, thirty-seven people, including twenty-one children were killed by the Marines. She then joins the guerrillas and fought the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies until she was grievously wounded, losing an eye in battle in
To escape the invented world that is presented to society, creating a more critical distance is necessary. Instead of allowing the media to use civilization, understanding the meaning and effect it has on them will enhance their perception. This directly correlates to Super Sad True Love Story, in which the populace has to grow through a collapse to fully grasp what is wrong within its society. Similar to The Truman Show, as Truman tries to escape Christof’s manipulations, he is blocked at every turn. The movie hinting to the viewers that they have to take a mental journey to secure their freedom. These cases are evident in the issue of the Paris attacks, reported in the article “Does Paris Matter More Than Beirut?” as the only people that are wondering why Westerners do not seem to acknowledge Beirut are critics. The media therefore draws society in, able to easily deceive and manipulate. As a result, the illusions created by the people ought to be escaped solely by
Greenfield, Daniel M. "Crime of Complicity in Genocide: How the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia Got It Wrong, and Why It Matters." The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 98.3 (2008): 921-24. HeinOnline. Web. 18 Apr. 2011.
The last three decades of the twentieth century were a time of revolution, genocide, and violence. Many governments around the world were taking full control over the lives of their citizens. African and Middle Eastern countries were often controlled under European rule through indirect rule. The way that indirect rule worked was that European nations appointed an indigenous group to enforce European laws creating chaos and turmoil within the satellite countries. The turmoil turned brother against brother and father against son. Both Persepolis and Hotel Rwanda illustrate the daily struggles that people in Iran and Rwanda as satellite citizens, endured. The police beat and imprisoned the citizens, and violence increased on the streets. Both films illustrate strength and determination that citizens of Iran and Rwanda used to navigate through a difficult time.
The Cambodian Genocide has the historical context of the Vietnam War and the country’s own civil war. During the Vietnam War, leading up to the conflicts that would contribute to the genocide, Cambodia was used as a U.S. battleground for the Vietnam War. Cambodia would become a battle ground for American troops fighting in Vietnam for four years; the war would kill up to 750,00 Cambodians through U.S. efforts to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines. This devastation would take its toll on the Cambodian peoples’ morale and would later help to contribute that conflicts that caused the Cambodian genocide. In the 1970’s the Khmer rouge guerilla movement would form. The leader of the Khmer rouge, Pol Pot was educated in France and believed in Maoist Communism. These communist ideas would become important foundations for the ideas of the genocide, and which groups would be persecuted. The genocide it’s self, would be based on Pol Pot’s ideas to bring Cambodia back to an agrarian society, starting at the year zero. His main goal was to achieve this, romanticized idea of old Cambodia, based on the ancient Cambodian ruins, with all citizens having agrarian farming lives, and being equal to each other. Due to him wanting society to be equal, and agrarian based, the victims would be those that were educated, intellectuals, professionals, and minority ethnic g...
The narrator, Le Ly Hayslip was born into a family of six in a town called Ka Ly in Vietnam. The villagers of Ka Ly fight for both side of the war; Hayslip’s own brothers were split between the communist north and the puppet government controlled south and so were her family. By day the village was looked over by Republicans, but by night they were under...
There were two interviews that Goldhagen held that I felt held the raw truth and was something devastating to see and hear about, one with a man that participated in the death of thousands of Tutsi’s and another with a woman who told a story of her own personal experience. The man talks about how for him it was almost hard to kill Tutsi’s since they had the same skin as him and how he didn’t kill children because it was sad knowing that you still had to. He says it was like a cloud covered their hearts and it was like a darkness that came over them, making them kill others. The young woman talked about how her mother, father, and brother were chopped into pieces with a machete. She goes on to tell Goldhagen that the people that killed her family were members of her community and even family friends. This lead Goldhagen to the questions ‘How do neighbors turn against neighbors?’ And ‘Why do the killers kill?’ these are just two of the questions that Goldhagen tries to find the answer to during the
“First they killed my father” is a powerful and touching story. It highlights the horrifying and painful cambodian civil war. It dramatically impact the readers and also informs them about sacrifice, and that it is necessary in hard times.
The emotional thriller, The Village, is about an isolated town that bases their lives around the 19th century, Amish country. The village has highly secured borders and outside the borders “those we don’t speak of” live and it’s an unspoken truce that the other won’t cross the borders. But the town soon turns upside down when Lucious Hunt breaches the borders to find medicine after the death of Edwards’s son. The writers and producers of this movie express symbolism of the fear of the unknown, the loss of innocence, and through the use of colors.
The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, which lasted until January 1979. For their three-year, eight-month, and twenty-one day rule of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge committed some of the most heinous crimes in current history. The main leader who orchestrated these crimes was a man named Pol Pot. In 1962, Pol Pot had become the coordinator of the Cambodian Communist Party. The Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of the Party and forced Pol Pot to flee to exile in the jungle. There, Pol formed a fortified resistance movement, which became known as the Khmer Rouge, and pursued a guerrilla war against Sihanouk’s government. As Pol Pot began to accumulate power, he ruthlessly imposed an extremist system to restructure Cambodia. Populations of Cambodia's inner-city districts were vacated from their homes and forced to walk into rural areas to work. All intellectuals and educated people were eradicated and together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society. The remaining citizens were made to work as laborers in various concentration camps made up of collective farms. On these farms, people would harvest the crops to feed their camps. For every man, woman, and child it was mandatory to labor in the fields for twelve to fifteen hours each day. An estimated two million people, or twenty-one percent of Cambodia's population, lost their lives and many of these victims were brutally executed. Countless more of them died of malnourishment, fatigue, and disease. Ethnic groups such as the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims were attacked, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambod...
These conditions were clearly morally deplorable, and the coup caused a change from aristocrats to an Indonesian business class, seen as a victory over communism at the climax of the Cold War. Seeing as similar killings happened right after Indonesia’s, one would think that the generals did not learn their lesson on moral validity. The inevitability of people being killed waters down the big question of moral validities by the minute. In the end, it all comes down to the point of view; depending on the point of view, any side’s moral values could be seen